Bigger Bucks for Smarter Bombs

By Evan Thomas.

Missile-guidance computer programs so complex that they can be written and tested only by other computer programs. A laser weapon that can release death rays in the nanoseconds before it is obliterated by its own power source, an atom bomb. A jet fighter that can understand the pilot's spoken commands.

Pentagon visionaries, rarely idle, are especially busy these days dreaming up such futuristic tools of war. Research and development has been one of the biggest beneficiaries of the Reagan defense buildup: the Administration has nearly doubled military R. and D. spending since 1981, and seeks another 22% hike, to $39.4 billion, for 1986. That is more than 10% of overall defense spending, twice the federal budget for civilian research, and enough to fund Medicaid for two years.

The biggest-ticket R. and D. item is Reagan's Space Defense Initiative, better known as Star Wars. The Administration wants to increase research funding for the SDI from $1.4 billion this year to $3.7 billion in 1986 and spend a whopping $30 billion during the next six years. Because a space-based defense system is still highly speculative, the research encompasses a dizzying array of technologies, like electromagnetic "rail guns" to fire projectiles at extremely high speeds across hundreds of miles of space and particle accelerators to hit a missile with a stream of atoms traveling near the speed of light.

A space-based defense system must itself be defended from pre-emptive attack: to enhance "survivability," the military is at work on a new generation of satellites, armored against laser rays, that can stay parked 22,000 miles over one spot on earth yet dodge enemy missiles and "space mines." Another far- out idea: a "pop-up" defense system that would be fired into space by submarines only after enemy missiles had been launched.

While the Pentagon tries to build the U.S. a perfect shield, it is hard at work trying to overcome Soviet defenses. In the late '60s the U.S. developed the MIRV (multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle) to saturate Soviet antimissile systems. Now that the Soviets are again beefing up their own defenses, the Pentagon is asking $174 million to develop a MARV (maneuverable reentry vehicle) that could dart and weave to avoid anti- missile missiles. The disclosure of the MARV research is awkward for the Reagan Administration because it undercuts the President's argument that it is possible to build an airtight defense system. Arms-race foes naturally fear another round of nuclear one-upmanship as MIRVing is made more lethal by MARVing.

The most intriguing items in the Pentagon's R. and D. budget may as yet be unknown. Up to a quarter of R. and D. funds--some $10 billion, a 50% increase over last year--are for classified or "black" programs deemed too sensitive by the Pentagon to be publicly divulged. The secrecy has set off the inevitable guessing game over such code names as Seek Axle, Have Flag, Cactus Plant and Theme Castle. Some experts believe that Aurora is the budget heading for "stealth" technology, which one day could make a plane or cruise missile invisible to enemy radar. Aurora's price tag: $80 million in 1986 and a hefty $2.3 billion in 1987.

The traditional justification for building high-tech weapons is to defeat Soviet brawn with U.S. brains. The Warsaw Pact countries, for example, have more than twice as many tanks as NATO. To compensate, the U.S. Army is developing nonnuclear "assault breaker" weapons that can strike tank columns behind enemy lines. In theory, a single such "smart" bomb could scatter enough electronically guided warheads to disable 50 tanks. The hope is that if NATO troops could hold off the Warsaw Pact's superior forces with conventional weapons long enough, the superpowers could avoid "going nuclear."

Critics in the so-called military-reform movement wonder whether complex gadgetry that looks foolproof in design will actually work on the battlefield. Along with some marvels, like the cruise missile, the Pentagon has produced its share of clunkers in recent years. One, the Sgt. York Air Defense gun, has had trouble even hitting a stationary helicopter in field tests. But weapons systems die hard. "Programs are like freight trains," says Anthony Battista, a staffer on the House Armed Services Committee. "Once they get going, they are difficult to stop." Moreover, the military is notorious for duplication, caused in part by the five services' pushing their own pet projects. Congressional auditors once found 42 different programs to research infrared imaging, a tool for night vision. Says Battista: "Sometimes I want to ask, 'Aren't you guys going to the same war together?' "

The military also has difficulty getting weapons off the drawing board and into the field. Designs are constantly rejiggered to accommodate changing technology. The Soviets, by contrast, tend to go with what they have. For the past two decades, for example, the U.S. has dithered over the Patriot tactical air defense system without ever deploying it. In the same time, the Soviets have fielded eleven different air defense systems. Such anomalies predictably inspire the scorn of reform-minded defense experts like Edward Luttwak, a senior fellow at the Georgetown University Center for Strategic and International Studies. His view of weapons can be summed up in the words of Voltaire: sometimes "the best is the enemy of the good."

With reporting by Jay Branegan/Washington